Media Epicenter: Stalking Apps, Friends, Family and the Creepy Factor

Apple’s introduction of “Find My Friends” in iOS5 adds a bit of mainstream endorsement luster to a smartphone feature that’s been baked in since day one and leveraged by third-party apps almost since then. You might even argue that it’s “Find My Phone” done right, since knowing the location of a phone isn’t really as much fun as knowing the location of the person, now suddenly easy to locate because s/he is never without a phone.

Loopt and Google Latitude and others have already been there, but there is nothing like the seamless treatment Apple can provide to sand the rough edges about a service which done right is greater than the sum of the hardware and software parts. “Find My Friends” is also a very family-and cost-friendly upgrade, since a) some carriers have charged an exhorbitant monthly fee for this feature and b) while it had been possible to find the phones — er, family members — using “Find My Phone,” that required a cumbersome log out / log in workaround because only one account could be accessed at a time.

But that is all opt-in stuff with everyone fully aware and on board. There is another side to third-party geo-location, and that’s been around for a while as well: “spy” software which rats you out to a private detective or your jealous spouse. It’s not a terribly huge problem — unless you are the target — and making sure you always control your always-locked phone is the best defense against stalking apps and a whole range of other prying-eyes intrusions.

A strange bedfellows coalition of senators is looking into this, gingerly for now, asking Attorney General Eric Holder to weigh in with a legal opinion about such apps. It’s a gray area, to say the least. I can follow someone around all day in public spaces, but I can’t tap anyone’s phone legally or even secretly record a conversation. As the contractee of a family plan of three iPhones, I “own” them all and can do with them what I want — but it would be creepy to say the very least for me to press that advantage by installing tracking apps on the handsets my wife and daughter use.

In an appearance Friday morning on CNN’s American Morning I hash it out a bit with host Carol Costello. At this point, I’m not entirely sure that some legislative curiousity is not in order. But as I say, the danger in regulating emerging technologies is that unintended consequences can stifle unforeseen innovation.